Day of Days — a 9/11 Diary

Twenty years ago today I woke up to a beautiful, cool, sunny morning much like I am enjoying now. I don’t remember my morning routine of the time but it would have been different anyway because on that particular day I had a technical presentation to give in my office on the fourth floor of 110 Wall Street in lower Manhattan. I usually drove into the office to work but I wanted to make last minute changes to the presentation and the hour-long ride on the early train would afford me some extra time.

In my haste to catch the train I forgot to put a on a belt and as it was a business-casual meeting I was not wearing a jacket. I realized it as I was passing through Westfield on the way to Newark Penn Station where I would transfer to a PATH train to the World Trade Center which was a few blocks from the office. I remembered that there was J Crew store in the mall beneath the towers so I would just pick a belt up there on my way to the presentation.

There was some rail repair work that day around Roselle Park so I was delayed about 30 minutes which got me to the WTC about 8:25am. As I got to the J Crew store I found it closed, not opening until 9:00am. I first thought to get a cup of coffee and wait for the store to open but that would have put me dangerously close to my 10AM presentation start time so I decided to look like a doofus without the belt and just head to the office.

I walked out of the South Tower and began my 10 minute walk to 110 Wall and about two blocks from the towers I heard a loud clamor behind me. Loud noises are not rare in New York and this could have been anything so I didn’t even look behind me to investigate the origin.

By the time I got to the office lobby there was a large crowd gathering around the three large-screen TVs that featured news stations. I really couldn’t see what was on the screen but there was a sense of panic in the crowd. My young associate, Dave, came up behind me looking as if he just saw the devil himself and said “Dude, I just saw a plane fly into the World Trade Center”.

No way, I thought. Not on a day like today. As a private pilot who flew with the US Coast Guard Auxiliary I had flown up and down the Hudson on numerous occasions. Unless some poor guy had a heart attack and lost control there is no way a plane would get near the towers.

But Dave was shaken. He said “it was an airliner”. What?????

The the first video feeds of the accident site came on the TV screen and I was stunned by the size of the hole in the building. Dave wasn’t exaggerating. I walked out of the lobby onto into the middle of Wall Street and looked west toward the towers and saw the smoke wafting southeastward towards us from the tower. Pieces of paper were raining down and blowing around.

Damn, what was this?

I was forced out of the street by police making way for fire trucks from the station around the corner on South Street who needed to go against the one-way traffic to get to the towers. I went back inside to the TVs. A few minutes later we all gasped as the second plane approached the south tower and we all felt the explosion of the impact from the lobby.

We’re under attack. I made my way up to my cubicle and jumped on my phone to call my wife Liz to let her know I was safe. She was on her way up to her family business in Pennsylvania so I couldn’t reach her directly but I left a message with her sister. Getting to my parents was hard because the local phone lines were jammed and so the only way to reach them was to call my sister in California, waking her up to the news, to have her contact them for me.

The next few hours were pandemonium. We were instructed to stay in our building and await further direction. I called my Coast Guard commander to see if there was anything we could do as there was a Coast Guard station around the corner from my office. Nothing.

We huddled together in the conference room where the presentation would take place. The customers who were the target of the presentation came onto our offices. They were from the UK an they were physically shaken. They had stayed at the Marriott right at the WTC and saw the carnage first hand. They reported seeing people jumping out of the towers to their deaths.

Then suddenly the world went black. Our office building rumbled and then was engulfed by thick black smoke. We couldn’t see out of the windows, like a deep dark moonless night had fallen. It took several minutes to dissipate and the we got to see the street covered in what appeared to be a mid-February snow storm. The South Tower had reportedly collapsed.

I began to make my exit strategy as I felt like a sitting target. Would the attack include more targets on Wall Street? We heard that there were 20 planes in the air looking for targets. We heard about the Pentagon and other plane crashes. We were helpless.

And then the North Tower came down. Same sickening rumble and black cloud.

Mayor Giuliani had closed all public transportation south of Canal street so I had to make plans to get home by foot. I looked out to see a mass of humanity making its way over to the Brooklyn Bridge, covered with ashes and some with blood and bandages on their heads. I could either go along with them or try to make my way north to the George Washing Bridge. After much deliberation, I decided to get to New Jersey directly so I grabbed my laptop and backpack and walked down to the lobby and out to the street.

At the end of Wall Street a hundred yards away there were ferries lining up to evacuate people out of southern Manhattan. I talked to a cop who informed me and others that the ferries were not scheduled for any particular destination but would get you out, and they were going to New Jersey ports. I embarked on the third ferry down the line and was told it was going to Hoboken. They got as many people on board as they could and then loaded the injured last so they could get off first. Bleeding heads, broken bones, smoke and soot inhalation, broken souls.

The journey to Hoboken took us around the southern tip of Manhattan. We looked aghast at the huge plume of smoke that marked where the two beautiful towers were just hours earlier.

Silence — broken only by occasional soft tears.

When we hit Hoboken the injured were removed and triage had been set up at the port. Those of us who were able-bodied had to walk through a phalanx of fire hoses that were set up to remove the dust and asbestos off of us. I was amazed of how much dust was on my clothes only having walked the hundred yards or so to the ferry dock. My laptop was soaked and ruined, and I ended up having to throw everything that I had on away.

Hitting Washington Street I heard somebody call my name. It was my priest, Fr. Mike from St. Francis who was consoling people coming off the ferries. He gave me a hug and asked if I was alright. I said I was a little shaken but I would be OK. I found out later he was looking for many parishioners who attended our church and worked at the World Trade Center. Six of them were victims.

I jumped on a train from Hoboken back to Newark and then Newark back home. Happy to be alive and forever changed.